


Compromised

by pendrecarc



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-16
Updated: 2011-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-18 04:18:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pendrecarc/pseuds/pendrecarc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock can be considerate when consideration suits him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Compromised

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sobota](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=sobota).
  * Inspired by [Change and Compromise, or: Living with Sherlock Holmes](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/2930) by sobota. 



> Many thanks to [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/innie_darling/profile)[**innie_darling**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/innie_darling/) for the beta and [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/kate-lear/profile)[**kate-lear**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/kate-lear/) for the Britpick!

Twenty-nine days out of the month, Sherlock spends a few minutes in the shower and leaves the bath as tidy as he found it (which, given he’s sharing it with a former army doctor, is saying a great deal). What he chooses to do with the remaining day is his own business. John is more than capable of completing his morning routine elsewhere, and it’s not as though going without a shave and shower once in a very great while could do him any harm. Sherlock once went ninety-three days without a bath. It was for a case, and a particularly stimulating case at that, but he hopes the necessity won’t present itself again in the near future. John isn’t likely to approve.

 

This isn’t to say he approves of finding several of his work shirts marinating in a solution of beet juice and vinegar, but Sherlock has ready answers to all his objections. _Yes, of course they have to be your shirts_ —the fibres from the crime scene are coarse synthetic blends, and Sherlock has nothing so repulsive in his own wardrobe. _No, I don’t fancy spending my morning in a flat reeking of vinegar any more than you do_ —which is why Sherlock intends to spend it taking in a master class at the London School of Music. _Yes, I know you’re expected at the surgery in an hour_ —Sherlock has an answer to that, too, but even thinking about the surgery is so tedious that he can’t be bothered to produce it.

 

John can do without the bathtub one day out of the month. If he couldn’t, well—Sherlock is just grateful it hasn’t come to that.

 

The kitchen is another matter. Sherlock is very careful in the kitchen. He leaves the severed hand next to John’s yoghurt rather than putting it above the raw chicken, though that would be far more convenient. Leaking fluids can’t harm the yoghurt, sealed as it is, and in any case Sherlock is partial to John’s curried chicken. John makes feeble attempts to curb the tide of anatomical specimens and corrosive materials, but Sherlock’s been adept at ignoring labels since his flatmates at uni started objecting to the smell coming from the cupboard above the sink. Those were concurrent experiments with communal living and rates of decomposition, of which the former was far less successful than the latter. John, in contrast, does not bring the matter to their landlady, deliver ultimatums, or throw him bodily out of the flat, perhaps because he knows Sherlock would never risk contamination of anything he actually intends to eat. He simply doesn’t have time for food poisoning, not when there are delicious crimes to be solved.

 

He doesn’t have time for money, either. More specifically he doesn’t have time for John to worry about money, and he doesn’t have time for Mycroft’s hints that he ought to be investing what little income he does have, so it’s a small enough sacrifice to see that his half of the bills are paid on time.

 

The money for John’s portion of the bills comes partly from his army pension but mostly from the odd hours he works at the surgery, so Sherlock sees it as an extension of his new-found fiscal responsibility not to bother him during working hours. Unless there’s a particularly good case on. Or unless he’s having a spat with Mrs. Hudson and needs to take it out on someone convenient, or Mycroft’s being especially meddlesome, or Sherlock happens to be very, very bored. Sherlock has a healthy respect for John’s professional abilities, much as John has for his. A former army doctor is a very useful thing to have on hand when one is flying down dark alleys after armed criminals or setting off minor explosions in the kitchen, and once or twice his skills have come in handy on a case, so Sherlock takes care not to cause so much trouble during the workday that John stands any risk of losing his job. He can be considerate when consideration suits him.

  


As for borrowing John’s clothes, well, that’s just practical.

 

The bedroom, now—Sherlock is willing to admit the bedroom is a bit selfish, but then he can’t be expected to sit downstairs all night and conduct delicate experiments to the sound of John’s nocturnal visits to Afghanistan. Oh, he’s tried other approaches, but firing John’s service weapon at the wall in an attempt at distraction, while momentarily effective, proved counterproductive in the long term. The violin was marginally more successful, but Sherlock’s repertoire of music John appreciates is only so extensive. Even Mendelssohn is tiresome when played night after night, and John’s untutored ear has little patience for anything written before the high Romantic period and none at all for anything that could be classified as Modernist. It comes down to a choice between transcribing _pop_ music and testing a hypothesis Sherlock has been nursing for some time, which is that John’s nights (and not incidentally his own) would be more restful for the presence of a second warm body in the bed. If John finds his insistence at sharing quarters a little odd, that’s far from the strongest word that could be applied to their relationship.

 

His hypothesis proves correct, of course. Sherlock is accustomed to having his convictions validated, but he finds this one satisfying all the same.


End file.
